Rental Tips:

Question: What is the Denver metro rental market like right now?

Wendy Frenzel: When someone says Denver metro, that’s a very large area because even in Castle Rock one neighborhood over another neighborhood the prices vary greatly. Want you are looking at are the amenities location ease of access to the interstates the views how old the homes is, so those are all very different factors in to it.

Condos – if someone is looking for an investment – i try and tell them to say away from condos. Go with a townhome if you have to stay low end if you can go for a single family home.

Condos will always compete with the apartment communities and apartment communities can afford to give you a $99 dollar deposit, 3 months free rent with a year lease they give great incentives where a single owner can’t afford to give away those kinds of items. With the condos you truely are competing with the apartment communities.

Townhomes are start looking at which townhomes offer better amenities. You want a 3 car attached garage. Just like you do in a single family home, people like that – if you don’t have an attached garage people are hmmm (make face) and it is not as high on their list.

Is water included or is water not included, what other amenities so you look those types of items determine value.

In single family there is such a wide range, again i am what does it feel like or how does the home flow? Because you could have a 1,700 sq foot home that does flow and feels tight or a 1,700′ home that feels open, even thought they are both 1,700′ homes the open one you can ask for more rent on.

So values right now in Denver they are staying pretty steady sometimes falling a little bit based on the time of year but what we are competing against is there are a lot of homes on the market for sale – people are finding that they can’t sell their home so they are trying the rental market. What people are forgetting though is that 35% of all the foreclosures affect homes that are being leased. One of the news stations did a study and said 35% so some of these residence that are moving into a home that is not managed by a property manager that is managed by a owner that is out of the area and is paying double mortgages, their ARM is going up. They might have just been foreclosed on these residences because the market is doing the weird things that it is doing and now they are getting foreclosed upon again. Having been evicted and having to move. It’s not there fault they have done everything right.

That is a fear that I am having that number continue to go up on how many homes are being foreclosed that affect those people that are leasing. And that is going to affect the values as well.

I think down the road people are going to pay more to work with a property manager then a single family owner that is doing it on their own because they feel a little more comfortable that the home is not going to be foreclosed on.

I have residence that ask me, “So who own this?” And is there any fear that it is going to be foreclosed on? Lets do the research why he is asking me that – because my owners that is something they are not going to let happen because they know if they do I am not a happy camper. That will affect your values.

I think rents are going to go up a little bit more (Castle Rock houses for rent). But we are going to have to work through all the homes that are on the market for sale and work thought the foreclosure process before values continue to go up to where they used to be.